About the Book
Since the Holocaust, traces of memory are virtually all that remain in Poland today after more than eight hundred years of Jewish life there. This remarkable album, published on behalf of the Galicia Jewish Museum in Krakow, offers a sensitive way of looking at that past. Based entirely on arresting, present-day colour photographs of Polish Galicia, it shows how much of that past can still be seen today if one knows how to look and how to interpret what one sees. The traces of the Jewish past in Polish Galicia can be approached from many angles. Jewish life in Poland was in ruins after the Holocaust, and so too were most of its synagogues and cemeteries. Much evidence of ruin remains, but, astonishingly, there are also traces that bear witness to the great Jewish civilization that once flourished there-synagogues and cemeteries of astounding beauty in villages and small towns as well as in the larger cities. One can also see the exact locations where the Germans murdered the Jews of Galicia in the Holocaust: not only in the infamous death camps and ghettos, but also in fields, in forests, and in rivers.
The Germans tried to destroy even the memory of the Jews in Poland, and to a very great extent they succeeded; then came forty years of communism, including the antisemitic campaign of 1968. But now that Poland is once again part of a multicultural Europe, the great Jewish civilization that once flourished on Polish lands is increasingly being memorialized, by local Poles as well as by foreign Jews. Synagogues and cemeteries are being renovated, monuments are being erected, museums are being set up, pilgrimages are taking place, festivals of Jewish culture are being organized, books about Jews are being published, and there are once again rabbis and kosher food. So the traces of memory include how the past is being remembered in Poland today, and the people doing the remembering. Given all these perspectives, the contact with contemporary realities involves a complex emotional journey: grief at a civilization in ruins; pride in its spiritual and cultural achievements; anger at its destruction; nostalgia for a past that is gone; hope for the future.
Considering each element in turn and offering cultural insights and information to support each of these responses, the combination of photos and text in this book not only informs but also suggests both how to make sense of the past and how to discover its relevance for the present. The seventy-four photographs are all fully captioned, with additional detailed background notes to explain and contextualize them. The idea is to help people understand the Jewish civilization of Polish Galicia in its local context on the basis of what can still be seen there today. People who have family connections with Polish Galicia will find this an invaluable sourcebook on their own heritage, but its innovative approach to understanding the past will appeal to anyone concerned with questions of history, memory, and identity, and how photography can make the past accessible. Published for the Galicia Jewish Museum, Krakow, by the Littman Library of Jewish Civilization and Indiana University Press
Table of Contents:
Prologue
Map of Polish Galicia
Introduction
1 Jewish Life in Ruins
2 Jewish Culture as It Once Was
3 The Holocaust: Sites of Massacre and Destruction
4 How the Past is Being Remembered
5 People Making Memory Today
Epilogue
A Notes on Galicia, Place Names, and Sources
Background Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author :
Jonathan Webber is a British social anthropologist. He taught Jewish studies at the universities of Oxford and Birmingham before taking up a professorship at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. He retired in 2016. He currently serves on the board of the Galicia Jewish Museum and is founding chair of the European Association for Holocaust Studies. Chris Schwarz was a much-travelled British photojournalist who in Poland teamed up with Jonathan Webber to work on the Traces of Memory project and in 2004 opened the Galicia Jewish Museum in Kraków to showcase his photographs as a way of bringing the story of the Jewish heritage in Polish Galicia to Poland and to the world. He died in 2007.
Review :
Reviews
'Polish-Jewish relations have long suffered from stereotypes and false accusations on both sides, and this book is a major step in the attempt to right the wrongs of the past ... A courageous and honest work, imbued with spirituality and feeling for the places and the subject, rarely matched.'
- Michael Schudrich, Chief Rabbi of Poland
'Chris Schwarz and Jonathan Webber have poignantly captured the ruins of memory. Tradition, religion, culture, language, architecture, homes, places of worship, and cemeteries, all beautifully photographed, clearly explained. Their work is a fitting memorial to the Jews of Galicia, who survive only through these whispered traces.'
- Stephen Smith, Chair, Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, UK
'Galicia was home to a vibrant Jewish society, which over many generations shaped the scope and direction of Jewish culture and added to its intensity. Hasidism, the enlightenment of the Haskalah, and Zionism were all movements that took root in Galicia and grew in ways that changed the course of Jewish history and energized Jewish society. This exceptional book conveys the physical and the metaphysical world of Galician Jewry, both at its peak and in its destruction by the Germans ... Chris Schwarz's photos draw the eye and stir the heart; Jonathan Webber's texts are informative, moving, and written with much wisdom. Altogether, it took a rare combination of brain, of heart, and of an intelligent and penetrating eye to produce a book that adds new layers to memory and inspires a yearning for what was lost. It will be a source of pride for every Jew-whether or not they have Galician roots.'
- Shevach Weiss, former Israeli Ambassador to Poland
'A remarkable tribute to the Jewish heritage of Polish Galicia ... immortalized in this exquisite photographic record and erudite commentary. A treasure for future generations.'
- Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, New York University and Museum of the History of Polish Jews
'Poignant and beautiful ... a panoramic picture not only of what is left of Jewish life in Poland but of what it was like in its heyday in all its aspects, both good and bad. It documents where and how it was destroyed and gives a moving account of what is being done to preserve the memory of what was lost and of the people, both Poles and Jews, involved in this important undertaking.'
- Antony Polonsky, Editor-in-Chief of Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry
'Jonathan Webber has a depth of knowledge about Jewish culture and the Jewish experience in Polish Galicia that few can equal. His captions to Chris Schwarz's stunning photos are deliberately brief, allowing the pictures to 'speak'on their own, but his wonderfully detailed-and highly readable-notes in the back section of the book evoke a rich texture of memory and tradition and loss and even hope.'
- Ruth Ellen Gruber, author of National Geographic Jewish Heritage Travel: A Guide to Eastern Europe
'Travelling with Jonathan Webber in Galicia was one of the most moving experiences of my life. Now every reader can participate in that journey through this extraordinary book, revisiting a past that has tragically vanished but continues to move and inspire.'
- Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, host of TLC's Shalom in the Home and founder of This World: The Values Network
